The 2nd Army had long held this part of the ypres salient, and knew the enemy's country as well as its own.
"From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917"
Philip Gibbs
Aeroplane photographs, stacks of them, revealed many secrets of the enemy's life on this high ground which gave him observation of all our roads and villages in the flat country between Dickebusch and ypres.
"From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917"
Philip Gibbs
The broken skeleton of ypres was always in the foreground or the background of this scene of war, and every day it changed in different atmospheric phases and different hours of light so that it was never the same in its tragic beauty.
"From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917"
Philip Gibbs